Lockdowns, avian influenza and electricity cuts. And then disruptive unrest. Mzansi’s poultry industry has been dealt devastating blows in recent months, and many up-and-coming farmers have still not bounced back fully.
As if an influenza-induced shortage of chicks and fertilised eggs – and a subsequent rise in prices – were not enough to deal with, challenges were exacerbated by supply chain disruptions in the July unrest in KwaZulu-Natal. It had an effect on everything from the storage of processed meat to the availability of day-old chicks and the manufacturing and delivery of feed. That was apart from farmers in KwaZulu-Natal who reported being directly hit by stock theft and destroyed infrastructure.
Tumi Ngobeni from Gauteng says she had to change from farming poultry to only selling chicken as it became extremely difficult to operate the business in the wake of the unrest.
“I had to change the path as my situation became impractical to maintain. The protests did have a huge impact on us. The feed was no longer available at our suppliers. The prices were very high to maintain and to continue with work.
“Currently I could say the situation has not really got better but as times goes on, I hope it shall be better. Indeed the industry is battling,” says Ngobeni.
Limpopo farmer Maphate Rakoma says her biggest challenge, too, is the hike in feed cost. A 50kg bag of feed used to cost R317 before the violent protests. It then increased to R330.
“We could say we have been hit double as poultry farmers. First it was lockdown regulations that made it difficult to run the business. Now there was violent protests that happened. Even us in Limpopo are affected,” she says.
Rakoma reckons that it will take poultry farmers some time to recover and to start seeing financial gains again.
Transformation is critical
African Poultry Producers secretary-general Kobedi Pilane agrees that the unrest has put a heavy strain on an industry already not conducive to the broad-based growth of poultry farmers in the country.
“This is exacerbated by the fact that we do not have enough farmers who breed chickens that lay fertilised eggs to produce day-old chickens for hatcheries (stock breeders) with good-quality fertilised eggs coming through.
“It is a huge problem that will need intervention at government policy level and [will need to be enforced] down to the industry.”
Pilane says the riots further took the industry backwards as young farmers just starting out were forced to close their businesses.
It only contributed to the lack of transformation and collaboration of different stakeholders that caused the industry still to be underdeveloped.
“There are few people who can own the good genes to produce high-quality parent stock and fertilised eggs for the industry. We need to broaden that, as [well as] the entire value chain of the poultry industry.”
Pilane says opening up the industry and making it accessible to more players was critical, and that his association was working around the clock to ensure that this was being done.
“As African poultry producers this is one of our main [arguments] why this industry needs to be transformed aggressively without any fear or favours,” he says.
“This is due to small-scale producers having to compete with large companies on the open market, with barriers to entry set too high. The industry is still dominated, to the point of being a monopoly, by a few players,” Pilane says.
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